Whole Week Already
by Mickleditch
Summary: [Melody (aka S.W.A.L.K.), 1971] 1/2/3/4/500 word exactly drabble/extended drabble collection. Shippy entries feature various combinations of Daniel, Melody and Ornshaw; should be taken throughout that they're in a three-way situation. Some humor. So sweet it comes with a free toothbrush.
1. Give and Take

Disclaimer: Melody and all characters copyright to Hemdale and Goodtimes Enterprises and written by Andrew Birkin and Alan Parker.

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**Give and Take**

Ornshaw likes going to Daniel's house, mostly because Danny has colour telly, which is more than they've got at home. There's also a good chance of him knowing most of the answers to their maths homework, so Danny's place after school on Fridays is somewhere to stay for as long as he can manage to swindle it. It's a house for coming to, rather than going from like Ornshaw's; definitely a step up from granddad's complaining, and crispy pancakes, with arctic roll for pudding, makes a change from a plate of sausages and lumpy mash. Danny's mum thinks that Ornshaw takes advantage of him, when she can be bothered to take any real notice of what he's doing. All dinner parties and WI meetings, Danny's mum is. Ornshaw feels a bit bad sometimes when he thinks about it, but nowhere near bad enough not to keep doing it.

He feels a lot less bad, and more happy inside in a soppy sort of way that he doesn't get all that often, when they're sitting with their feet up on the big sofa watching the football, and Danny says he's glad when Ornshaw can come round, because he's his best friend.


	2. Kiss the Bride

**Kiss the Bride**

"Shut _up!"_ Ornshaw yells. From where they are at the top of the steps, his voice echoes under the stone of the arches, miles and miles, and, slowly and reluctantly, the sniggering and giggling dies down. "It's not funny, y'know," he adds, "it's serious!" Cathy Kemp, chief bridesmaid, reaches up and tugs Melody's headdress straight. It's one of her mum's crocheted doilies, but it's the thought, isn't it?

He reckons you can't need all of the words that are in the book, and her and Daniel'd never remember them anyway, let alone him, so he marries them with the _I do's._ He does it, like he said he would, even if they_ are_ mad, just because he doesn't bloody well see why anyone should stop them doing whatever it is they want to do. And he does it because they trust him. It's the first time he's felt _responsible_ for someone. He didn't think he'd like it the way he does.

The only thing about standing there, at the apex of their triangle, is that when each of them says it, _I will,_ looking at him and then at each other, he finds himself wanting to say, "Yeah, me too."


	3. Apples in Winter

**Apples in Winter**

It's been another wet dinnertime, wet and windy and flipping freezing; doors banging and dustbin lids flying, the pong of wet coats. When you get out of range of 1D practising every tune in their violin and recorder books at the same time, you can hear rain hammering on the roof and throwing itself against the windows like He's upending buckets up there or something.

Ornshaw's disappointed because he's got hold of some Park Drive, and fancies sneaking off behind the gym to try one, and because he doesn't know why they get in trouble during wet breaks when it's the teachers who can't do anything with them. Unfair, it is. If he'd been having a quiet fag, he wouldn't have been there to give Neville Smith - Smudger - one of the prefects, a v-sign while pretending to wave to Fensham along the corridor, Smudger wouldn't have reported him, and Ornshaw wouldn't have taken Smudger's books to the cookery room and put them in one of the ovens. Completely beyond his control.

There wasn't enough smoke for Mrs Perry to scream like that. After he'd finished slippering Ornshaw, Mr Dicks had said that the noise did as much to his nerves as the incident.

Melody sits next to him in Geography. He can see her looking at him as he settles gingerly into his chair. About ten minutes into the lesson, her elbow nudges his, and a folded piece of paper slides into his vision. He opens it.

_Does it hurt?_

Ornshaw debates shaking his head, but changes his mind because it'll be good if she feels sorry for him, and he doesn't enjoy lying as much as he used to. It's being around the two of them. He writes, _A bit_ underneath, and passes it back. Not too soft, but not too easy about it either.

Melody's writing something else. A minute later, the note comes back. _You missed dinner_

She catches his eye, and Ornshaw shrugs. Melody's gaze flicks quickly forwards to make sure she's not being watched, and she lifts the lid of her desk, dead carefully, jabbing it and then holding it firm. Slow desks and doors creak loudest; they've all learned that the hard way. Something's pushed into his hand. He looks at the apple, then up at her. She smiles and wrinkles her nose.

At the bottom of the note, it says, _I don't like Mrs Perry_

It isn't a bad sort of day, really. Because even if he has to get belted by old Dicks at dinnertime, he can still be walking home later with Melody and Daniel, dodging puddles. He might have a scrap with Smudger; see if Danny's up for joining in. Show off to his missus. Ornshaw grins, and suddenly he doesn't hurt any more.

Mr Browning, the Geography teacher, is droning on about glaciers carving up the landscape. Ornshaw puts his elbows on the desk, props his cheek on his hand, and looks forward to spring.


	4. Swallow or Spit

**Swallow or Spit**

There's people who chew gum, and then there's the pros, like Ornshaw. O'Leary's useless, no staying power, and last time Stacey tried blowing a bubble, they all ended up pitching in to get it scraped off his glasses. Ornshaw can crack gum, blow bubbles, switch between two pieces, and hide it so even the school dentist can't find it. He's always up for a challenge, but there aren't many takers.

He's been working on this piece for three days, so he's more than slightly narked about it when Mr Dicks spots him halfway through the lesson and tells him to walk to the front of the class and spit it in the bin. Ornshaw's the creative type, though, and as Dicks happens to have turned round to write on the blackboard just as he arrives there, he has the feeling that there's got to be a better place to do it than that.

Dicks makes them read their homework translations out loud. Ornshaw hasn't done his. Dicks quotes him _non scholae sed vitae discimus_, which means something or other about education being for life and not just for school. Ornshaw asks if Mr Dicks can recommend them some Latin phrases for the match on Saturday.

"You have no sense of history in your soul, Ornshaw," Dicks says, when he's calmed down enough to speak, "which comes as no surprise to me, because I doubt that you're in possession of one." He fishes a white hanky from his trouser pocket and wipes his forehead, then picks up his tea from its precarious position on the edge of the desk just above the bin. Ornshaw looks up again just in time to see him drain half the cup in one long, slow mouthful.

And thinks what a bloody fantastic world it is.


End file.
